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About Me

I am a happy and honest person and generally like to live by my rules. Sometimes though I tend to go into bouts of manic depression and then I have to bank on the phoenix within me to help me out.... I thought to create this blog for everyone who needs a phoenix now and then, as a place to rejuvenate, or as Holden Caulfield would say, as a 'Catcher in the Rye'. I want it to be a small portal for people like me who are also on the path of self-discovery. All are welcome here to share their experiences and views. Thanks.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

His Phoenix

By William Butler Yeats

There is a queen in China, or maybe it's in Spain,And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heardOf her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with nostain,That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by abird;And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing woma-kind,Or who have found a painter to make them so for payAnd smooth out stain and blemish with the eleganceof his mind:I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have theirday.

The young men every night applaud their Gaby'slaughing eye,And Ruth St. Denis had more charm although she hadpoor luck;From nineteen hundred nine or ten, Pavlova's had thecryAnd there's a player in the States who gathers up hercloakAnd flings herself out of the room when Juliet wouldbe brideWith all a woman's passion, a child's imperious way,And there are -- but no matter if there are scores beside:I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have theirday.

There's Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;One's had her fill of lovers, another's had but one,Another boasts, 'I pick and choose and have but twoor three.'If head and limb have beauty and the instep's high andlightThey can spread out what sail they please for all I haveto say,Be but the breakers of men's hearts or engines ofdelight:I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have theirday.

There'll be that crowd, that barbarous crowd, throughall the centuries,And who can say but some young belle may walk andtalk men wildWho is my beauty's equal, though that my heart denies,But not the exact likeness, the simplicity of a child,And that proud look as though she had gazed into theburning sun,And all the shapely body no tittle gone astray.I mourn for that most lonely thing; and yet God's willbe done:I knew a phoenix in my youth, so let them have theirday.